The Pleasures of Memory, with Other Poems

by Samuel Rogers

This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.

206 pages, Paperback

First published March 4, 2010

About the author

Samuel Rogers was an English poet, during his lifetime one of the most celebrated, although his fame has long since been eclipsed by his Romantic colleagues and friends Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron. His recollections of these and other friends such as Charles James Fox are key sources for information about London artistic and literary life, with which he was intimate, and which he used his wealth to support. He made his money as a banker and was also a discriminating art collector.

Reviews

[Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable read of a poet who was friends with Byron and Shelley and one of only three people to turn down the post of Poet Laureate of the UK. The main poem, "The Pleasures of Memory", was good. But for melancholic and nostalgic poetry, I prefer Thomas Gray's "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College" and Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Frost at Midnight". The other long poem in this volume, "An Epistle to a Friend", was nice, especially in the preface about the difference between true and false taste. Rogers says true taste is confined to "a few objects, and delights in producing great effects by small means" versus false taste which is "forever sighing after the new and the rare" (p. 87). Well said, even if I don't always follow that philosophy.

I really enjoyed the notes to this work, especially the items on Edward Gibbon (p. 75) and Lord Chesterfield (p. 109). The latter describes the quote from Horace's Satires (ii 6. 60-62) Chesterfield had inscribed in his library: "nunc veterum libris, nunc somno, &c.", which translates to "now the books of the ancients, now sleep, etc."